2001 TRIAD Gallery - Float Drawings and Recent Paintings - 7/01
2000 Museum of Contemporary Art /Detroit Institute of Arts - DOCUMENTA USA 2000 - 01/00
2000 Detroit Contemporary Gallery - Actual Size Exhibition - 2/00
2000 GALLERY B.A.I. - Solo Exhibition - Barcelona, Spain - 3/00
2000 Arnold Klein Gallery - Red/Desert-Group Exhibition - Royal Oak, Michigan 5/00
2000 CAELUM Gallery - International Group Exhibition - New York, NY - 6/00
2000 OPEN STUDIOS - Group Exhibition - Bielefeld, Germany - 8/00
2000 Galerie GORA - Solo Exhibition - Montreal, Canada - 10/00
1999 Ward-Nasse Gallery - 178 Prince Street New York, NY 2/99-3/99
1999 World Fine Art Gallery - 443 Broadway, 4th Floor New York, NY - 3/99
1999 Arnold Klein Gallery - In Honor of Water - Group Exhibition - Royal Oak, Michigan 5/99
1999 Galerie BLU - Group Exhibition - Pontiac, Michigan - 7/99
1999 Nicolet College - Northern National Juried Competition: Rhinelander, Wisconsin - 7/99
1999 Nexus Gallery - Third Annual National Juried Competition: 345 East 12th St. New York, NY - 8/99
1999 Galerie BLU - Febbo, Mirek, Newbill Exhibition: Pontiac, Michigan - 10/99
1999 Arnold Klein Gallery - A Tribute To Time - Group Exhibition - Royal Oak, Michigan 11/99
1999 Lindenberg Gallery - End of the Millenium Group Show - New York, NY -12/99
1999 Biennale Internazionale dell' Arte Contemporanea - Florence, Italy - 12/99
1999 The Art Gallery a Casa di Giorgio - Solo Exhibition - Tuscany, Italy - 12/99
1999 Orensanz Foundation Center for the Arts - American Artists from the Florence
Biennale - Soho, NY - 12/99
1996 The Gallery at Marygrove College - INVENTIONS - Detroit, Michigan - 12/96
1995 CADE Gallery - NEO TROIT in December - a group exhibition - Royal Oak, Michigan - 12/95
1995 Arnold Klein Gallery - about BOOKS - Royal Oak, Michigan- 5/95
1985 Detroit Institute of Arts - On-Going works exhibition - Detroit, Michigan - 7/85
1982 Xochipilli Gallery - Group Exhibition - Birmingham Michigan - 2/82
1982 Detroit Artists Market - Group Exhibition - 2/82
1981 Awful Truth Gallery - Pre-Institutional Art Exhibition - Detroit, Michigan - 8/81
1978 Gallery 7 - Ideas/Works Exhibition - Detroit, Michigan - 3/78
1978 Detroit Focus Gallery - 3-Dimensions Exhibition - 12/78
1977 Detroit Institute of Arts - Founders Gallery Exhibition - 12/76
1977 Detroit Artists Market - Group Exhibition - 2/77
1977 Gallery 7 - 7th Annual Group Exhibition - Detroit, Michigan - 4/77
1977 Gallery 7 - 8th Annual Group Exhibition - Detroit, Michigan - 12/77

Statement
As the second millennium draws to a close, we continue to wrestle with ageless questions such as, What is art? How can art be vital and valid? And perhaps the most treacherous and nihilistic question of all, "Why make art?"

Despite the march of time, art does not progress linearly. Yet, once created it takes its place in time. It becomes part of time. Part of history. It becomes a glyph - a commentary on the age. Simply put, art is part of its historical context. And the artist's vision a commentary.

In the post-Pop era, the image holds rule over meaning (content). This superficial "rendering" reveals the underlying cynicism over the loss of the avant-garde or subversive aesthetic.

It is in this context that Robert Mirek creates images devoid of cynicism and sentimentality while possessing beauty and profundity.

Entry into Mirek's world - and his worldview - is two-fold. One is by way of color and surface. The second through the visual and tactile.

His is a highly personal worldview. Indeed, the small dimensions of his objects invite comparison to medieval devotional objects carried by travelers such as small ivory diptychs or triptychs.

Mirek's sensuous and physical application of paint reveals the influence of Clyfford Still and Philip Guston. The colors are those of the earth and sky.The shapes and the relation of surface to edge address the classical concerns for color, form, space and rhythm. They are at once ambiguous and suggestive while avoiding the narrative and illustrative.

Mirek has overcome mere visual artifice to achieve a single-minded focus. He answers the aforementioned questions of what, how and why with a physicality and vitality that attests to life beneath the surface. His work is a meditation and a confrontation between the selves and a coming to terms. An acknowledgement of a dialogue that transcends to the universal and ultimately exists outside time.

- Robert Edwards, December, 1998


Float Drawings
The 21st century is already opening up to a new age of beauty in a world desperate with decay and the decadence of brutality. The work of Robert Mirek is one of the burgeoning oases where we discover tranquility in a fixed and certain skill and intelligence which gives credit to the viewer as a person of imagination and taste. The refined esthetic which gives rise to the Float Series is the result of experience in art history as well as studio practice, and the consequence of intense discipline and sureness of touch. This is art without philosophical pretense, political inclination or fabricated trendiness. The Float drawings are a distillation of elements of the broader compositions of the jewel-like paintings which preceeded them. The drawings, while not figurative, suggest human gesture. The carefulness of the work connotes the orderly intentions behind the better aspirations of the humanitarian mind, and the decisiveness of the compositions recall other artists who may have produced works more literal but not more evocative. Robert Mirek is concerned with the beauty of his materials transmuted by thought. His success is immediately perceived and gratefully acknowledged. The visual advantage, for those fortunate to see his work, is eneffable.
Arnold Klein
April, 2000


Float Drawing Statement
"Sub-atomically, all matter is floating in an ever-swirling soup of intertwined electron activity that forces us to conclude that the notion of edge is merely a convenient comforting explanation for what begins and what ends."

My conceptual concern with my recent drawings (Float Drawings) stem from my ongoing interest with physical dimensions..

I have never embraced the notion of two-dimensional art. Not that it doesn't exist, because I believe it does, but rather with regard to my own efforts. My approach in all aspects of my work is one of objectivity, in the strictest sense that my art is/are objects. It's this quality of objectivity that I've always felt grounds us in the physical world. Art is what confirms our existence. It's the secular stance upon which we probe transcendence.
I began the Float Drawings at a time when I had embarked on a series of paintings which exaggerate physical boundaries. I had been using drawing quite traditionally as a means to develop and plan extended manifestations of an idea, i.e., paintings or constructions. And I still feel that aspect also resides in the Float Drawings. What became a point-of-departure for me was the reexamination of the drawing as object. Just as I consider the dimensions of a canvas or panel the edifice in which a work resides, so too a blank sheet or page acts as that same essential edifice.
The next dilemma I had to face was the notion of edge. My solution, as in the current paintings, is to accentuate the edge. Burning the edge of my drawings is my attempt to make a distinction between edifice and art object. Never completely successful, in a quantum-mechanical world, it is however a way to extend traditional drawing methods. Reinvention is a responsibility of every artist, especially since we need to be completely non-responsible in so many aspects of an aesthetic life.
The use of an elemental force such as heat also contributes to mythic as well as technological concepts. Pre-Celtic beliefs of unearthly-fire as well as tempering in the industrial sense are just two examples. Skins of beasts was an early reaction of mine to the burned-edge aspect of the drawings. Mark Rothko also came to mind when he said in reference to his own paintings; " . . . (paintings) are like skins we shed. . . "

With regard to imagery.
The current imagery can best be explained as simultaneous. The visual language that I'm developing/speaking is a form of self-dialogue that resides in objects, ideas and scenarios that are at the edge of abstraction.
Developing the imagery is a non-rational or probably better stated as personal rationale. I draw in a thought process that keeps as many doors open at once. The conceptual connections, which eventually become visual signals, are drawn in a simultaneous moment(s.) It's as close, as I know, of an out-of-body experience and, to me, seems the perfect place to begin the art process.

Robert S. Mirek - February 9, 2001

GALLERY SITE - Inaugural installation 6/97 20 CHAIRS / 20 ARTISTS +4 - Internet Exhibition Production and Design 3/98 GALLERY SITE - Bloom's Day Group Exhibition and window installation Royal Oak, Michigan - 6/98 - 8/98

HEILMAN-C.com - Guest artist for July of 1998 CREATIVE OOZE.com- Featured artist: Issue #7 August/September of 1998

Gulp! Gallery - Glasgow, UK December 10-18, 1998

Swissart Network - International artist directory

Net Art - International space for art and communication

Ward-Nasse Gallery - Internet and group exhibition - Soho, New York 2/26

World Fine Art Gallery - http://www.worldfineart.com/ - Soho, New York 12/98

ArtXL - Toronto, Ontario - featured artist 1/99

Irish Times - Dublin, Ireland - Bloomsday 1999: American Artists Revisit The Narrative

Artist featured at Virtual Gallery - Detroit-area artists Robert Edwards, Kip Kowalski, Robert Mirek, Marco Silveri and Nelson Smith -The Royal Oak Mirror - July 1998

Passport For Painting - Detroit-area artists Nancy Thayer and Robert Mirek exhibit in Italy - Woodward Magazine - December/January 2000

New York Notebook - Robert Mirek chosen to represent the United States - Gallery & Studio Magazine - January/February 2000

Wayne State University - African American Lecture Series - Lester Johnson: Collaborative Projects with Robert Mirek and new technologies - March 2000

Andrew Barton Jr. - Plymouth, Michigan
Brian Bracken - Southfield, Michigan
Carol Breitmeyer & Donald Jones - Ferndale, Michigan
William & Debra Clayton - Ann Arbor, Michigan
Charles Dalgleish Jr. - Detroit, Michigan
Michael Delahunt - Denver, Colorado
John Hallin - Denver, Colorado
Victoria Neale & Richard Scott - Berkley, Michigan
Dwight Rinke - Birmingham, Michigan
Harvey Rosenberg - Escondito, California
Gilbert Silverman - Beverly Hills, Michigan
Patricia Thoms - Troy, Michigan
Linda Wells - St. Claire Shores, Michigan
Silveri Architects - Ferndale, Michigan

Detroit Institute of Arts - Detroit, Michigan

Robert Mirek

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